Pakistani who lived in India for 30 years arrested (Lead)

Lucknow, Sep 4 (IANS) A 60-year-old Pakistani national who allegedly lived illegally in India for over 30 years was arrested by the police in Uttar Pradesh Thursday.According to the police, Vakeel Ahmed was nabbed from Bhadohi district, 250 km from here.

Ahmed, 60, who went to Pakistan when he was eight years old, came to India on a valid passport in 1977 to meet his relatives in Uttar Pradesh, the police said.

“He (Ahmed) was a native of Ghosia village of Bhadohi. However, his brothers and sisters stayed back here and Ahmed came to meet them in 1977,” inspector of Gyanpur police station Ram Manorath Thapa told IANS over phone.

Ahmed, from an humble family background, was arrested in May 1977 after his visa expired, a police press statement said, adding he was then released on bail but went missing. “The intelligence department has been intimated for necessary interrogation.”

“During interrogation, he (Ahmed) claimed he went into hiding because he did not want to return to Pakistan and wished to live in his village here,” inspector Indrajeet Saroj, an intelligence official, told IANS.

According to the police, Ahmed lived in the village during the period he remained ‘missing’ and would go into hiding when police searched for him.

His relatives in Ghosia work as daily wage labourers and nothing incriminating was recovered from Ahmed, a frail man, said the police.

And according to Saroj, there was nothing which could describe him to be “an anti-national”.